Black Ordeal of Slavery and Slave Trading in the French West Indies, 1625-1715 the Black Ordeal of Slavery and Slave Trading in the French West Indies, 1625-1715 Volume 3

Author:

Munford, Clarence

Year:

1992

Pages:

379

ISBN:

0-7734-9433-2978-0-7734-9433-6

Price:

249.95

Along with reflections on the slavery-capitalism-racism causal chain, this book reveals the tight bond between the Black West Indies and Africa through analysis of socio-political conditions in Africa, and of the ethnic origins of diaspora Africans. The years from 1625 to 1715 are the time when the scaffolding of the plantation slave economy was erected. It triggered the dialectic between the slave mode of extracting surplus labor from captive Africans on the one side, and the profit exigencies of nascent capitalism, on the other. This dialectic made the installation of the capitalist mode of production in the western hemisphere a peculiarly racist phenomenon. This book seeks to show also that the lasting community of Blacks which emerged in the French West Indies during those years was permanently conditioned by this dialectic. The period from 1625-1715 has been neglected.

Reviews

"In this work, which is definitive in both quality of style and research, Clarence J. Munford has contributed to the growing literature on the African diaspora to the Americas, particularly the French West Indies. . . . The Black Ordeal speaks to the present twentieth century as well as to the past and future. . . . tells a story of pain and suffering relevant to all the peoples of African descent in the western hemisphere. . . . This three-volume history is highly recommended."-- Colonial Latin American Historical Review

"This is indeed a significant piece of scholarship . . . . In this book we have a carefully analyzed and thoroughly documented history of the design and development of that {plantation slave} economy. . . . the slaves were able to synthesize African family traditions, mores and customs in an entirely new creation -- an Afro-Caribbean people. . . . The scholarly gap in our historical record has now been admirably closed." Alex Michalos